Intensive Italian for Gamers – Giorno 21

¡Ciao! 

mercoledì 20 marzo

Per the ush, as the students go along entering class and warming up for our Wednesday in Intensive Italian, Simone has a game playing on the big screen on the right, and our daily plan presented on the left.

🎮 Gioco: we continue to immerse ourselves with input and activities from Assassin’s Creed and when I came in to class a fellow student was marching Ezio around the streets of Firenze vecchio. The background music was playing, and while most students were paying attention to the game, some were paying attention to their cell phones.  I popped in a wee bit later than normal, just as Simone asked the giocatore to finire. Our classmate closed out to the main menu, and arrowed down to esci. I thought to myself ‘that means to go out or exit’. Then, ‘wait a minute, how do I know that?’ Well, even if you have just a basic knowledge of video game set up, one can configure that normally the option to ‘exit’ is listed at the bottom of the menu. However, it suddenly struck me, I knew the word from our homework last night from MyItalianLab, non-gaming related.

I just checked to make sure. There it is, clear as the non-blue sky which insists on persisting well into March 😣.  There on page 123, Chapter 4, a list of 3 irregular verbs appear, including ‘andare‘, ‘venire‘ and ‘uscire‘.

I’m sure that was no accident, the alignment in the book lesson with our gaming practices 😉

Bravo, Profe! ✅

 

 

 

Lecture followed the normal structure today:

1. Annuncio!
   Simone let us know there would be no class on il primo di aprile….🤔 I was tempted to ask if that was a joke, but he seemed serious and the reason was legitimate, so I let it go. I hope I am not April fooled!
2. Parliamo! (warm up- speaking practice in large and small groups)
3. Studiamo! (introduction to and practice of new concepts such as, grammar, vocabulary, and culture)
4. We also finished reviewing our Mid Terms, which we got back this past lunedì.

👁 Osservare: when practice together as a whole class, Simone makes it a point to call on every single student. There is no one left out, which of course has many benefits. As a teacher myself, I love this tactic, and experiencing this strategy first-hand is always a good reminder to integrate into my own practice, as it almost forces students to pay attention. If you are not paying attention and you get called on….well, your loss.

👨‍🏫 Simone: “Brown always makes you look like a hick”
As we reviewed l’abbigliamento in our conversation today we were contextualizing it with what we would wear to job interviews. Apparently in Italy men’s dress shirts are never white, but generally black or blue. Same with a woman’s power suit, dress, or really any kind of business or business casual clothing. In Italy, in this situation, the expected colors are nero, blu, azzurro, and sometimes grigio, but never marrone, because “brown always make you look like a hick”.

Speaking of clothes and colors, on ‘Wednesdays we wear’…don’t say  it…rosa. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, but actually, on Wednesdays we have laboratorio italiano, and we always get into something fun there.

Laboratorio 4 – Using adjectives & learning about agreements (M/F, S/P)
DESCRIVI UN VIDEOGIOCO/CREA LA TUA RECENSIONE!

Today’s activity involved a worksheet, and exercises in listening, speaking, writing, research, and group work- Tutto that abbiamo bisogno for a well-rounded and fun learning environment.

1. First, we became familiar with the grammar we would need to write a proper video game review, such as vocabulary, adjectives, verbs, indirect articles both masculine and singular, etc.
   > this set us up with the linguistic resources we need to write our own review.
2. As a class we watched and listened to a recording of una recensione del gioco ‘Super Mario Sunshine‘  that Simone had prerecorded. The script was printed on the worksheet, and included a couple of blanks per line prompting us to fill in various verbs. First, we just watched the video and listened.
3.  We listened once again to the review, but this time with no visual, just audio, while we followed along on the script.
4. Next, as a class we went through the review filling in the missing verbs with their proper conjugation.
   > All of this set us up for success, as our final product was to work as a group and complete an original review of a real video game, which we will orally present next week.
   It was really good practice, and we had all of the resources we needed right there on the worksheet, such as adjectives and the model to follow. Plus, my group of 3 was very diverse in the fact that we had myself, a non-gamer whatsoever, who when asked what game she plays over the weekend, responds with ‘ho giocato correre’ o ‘gioco con le lingue’; there was also the student who is extremely into video games and who hauls around what seems like a 15-pound computer around; and, the third group member fell in the middle. She is quite neutrale, as she has more familiarity with games than I do, but can’t name all the consoles or versions. So, we were a good team.

La prossima settimana we will present our recensioni in front of the class. I will of course sound like an expert when I present on a video game in my third language…

¡Ciao!